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Head Coach Augie Garrido announced on Friday that senior pitcher Chad Hollingsworth has retired from baseball due to complications with recovery from surgery following a 2015 season marred by a shoulder injury.

“It is in his best interest to move forward academically and spend more time with it because there doesn’t appear to be a baseball future,” Garrido said. “Now is the time for him to focus on adjusting to the realities of that and that’s with our help.”

Hollingsworth entered the 2015 season hoping to duplicate the results of a stellar 2014 campaign that saw him go 4-0 with a 1.14 ERA. The right-hander, however, struggled in eight starts and pitched through arm discomfort to the tune of a 3-5 record and a team-high 5.75 ERA.

Losing Hollingsworth will put a strain on a staff that is already without last year’s ace Parker French, but the return of redshirt sophomore Morgan Cooper, who missed all of 2014 recovering from Tommy John surgery after a stellar freshman season, should help elevate the staff that Garrido called the biggest surprise of fall practice.